


Gone for so Long - And it Shows

by Limitlxss



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Medieval Fantasy, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Limitlxss/pseuds/Limitlxss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pair of wounded swordsmen return from an epic adventure to see the lover they left behind, but not before crossing paths with an unusual hedge-witch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone for so Long - And it Shows

Finally, they could see light in the distance, the clearest indication that there was a settlement of some kind ahead and beside him, Squall heard the bigger man let out a small sigh of relief. It was hard to hold back on one of his own but the brunet remained silent at Angeal’s side.

For three and a half months they had been travelling the roads that had divided and meandered through the forests and plains of the world to link the towns and villages out beyond the heart of their Kingdom and crossing into the next.

Those months had been a long and tiring trek, rationed heavily while stocking up in settlements that crossed their path but their supplies were again running low and neither man was particularly handy with a bow to go hunting. Squall had managed to add a little game to their meals by slinking off into the forests that surrounded their camp each night to lay traps but if he caught anything it was usually small, a meagre addition to the meal. They were no strangers to travelling and living off dried rations of meat or hard bread but neither of them was about to turn their nose up to some fresh game, even if it did mean a little bit of extra effort for relatively small reward.

The settlement ahead was a godsend though, if only for the water it would offer. Neither man had bathed in days and their skins of water were running low enough the brunet was beginning to worry.

As they approached the settlement, more and more lights appeared in windows and outside establishments and thus began to indicate the size of the town to the pair of weary travellers.

Without looking up at him Squall knew that Angeal was smiling.

“This must be River’s Edge, Squall,” Angeal murmured, his joy at finally reaching the riverside town ringing in his lowered voice. “We’ve finally reached the river. We can cross to the Kingsroad from here. We’re almost home…”

It was late and thus the traffic on the road was non-existent but Squall knew as Angeal did, that if this really was River’s Edge, as soon as dawn broke the town would be a hive of activity with wagons to-ing and fro-ing with goods to go across the river to the city that lay just a day’s travel across the water. The relief that came with that thought was almost overwhelming and the brunet felt the gentle and supportive presence of Angeal press a little closer as the smaller male finally felt some of his weaknesses come to his attention.

Their travel had not been uneventful and both men bore evidence of that in their ripped pants, scuffed leather and the cuts and bruises beneath. Angeal had a crude bandage wrapped around his forearm that was in dire need of changing and Squall was almost bent double with the pain of where a quarrel was lodged in his side. Too dangerous to remove lest he bleed out, and that too was wrapped tightly.

“Come on, I’m sure the town’s hedge-witch can put a poultice on that. They never seem to sleep anyway,” Angeal urged gently, encouraging the brunet to keep moving through the light that spilled out of the windows. Night it may be but it wasn’t so late that the tavern wasn’t full along with other similar establishments and some homes were still brightly lit too. People milled about outside still too, heading from one place to another but none spared a glance for the two ragged strangers. In a hub of trade such as the riverside town, strangers came and went like grains of sand, too many and too frequently to bother paying attention to.

Finally they came upon the hedge-witch’s hovel near the outskirts of the town and Squall waited outside, leaning against the wall as Angeal knocked before entering.

He wasn’t kept waiting for long but when the raven called him inside, he was greeted not by a wrinkled old crone as hedge-witches had a reputation for being, but a slender young blond man who looked over him critically as he moved into the light cast by the assortment of candles lit around the main room.

“This is Rufus,” Angeal introduced from where he was sat on a low stool nearby. “He’s agreed to treat us both. For a modest fee of course.”

“Of course,” Squall replied tightly, knowing that his purse was far lighter than he would have liked it to be. Stiff drinks at the tavern were out of the question but perhaps they had enough to coax the innkeeper to prepare them a hot meal. He could die happy then, he thought.

“Let me see you,” Rufus ordered as he approached the brunet who flinched away from him with wary distrust in his eyes. “I cannot heal what I cannot see,” the hedge-witch remarked with a small roll of his blue eyes.

Feeling Angeal’s eyes on him too, Squall sighed softly and slowly, painfully pulled the leather and cloth from his upper body, feeling the worst of his wounds pull and shift around the heavy quarrel buried beneath a layer of bandages and skin. He watched Angeal grimace as he began to unwind the stained bandages and watched himself as fresh blood oozed from the disturbingly wide hole left by the quarrel still lodged inside him.

Rufus made a tutting noise but said nothing as he first observed the wound and then began pressing warm fingers gently around the injury. Gentle or not though, Squall tensed, the colour draining from his face with the pain enough that Angeal even rose to steady him. Guilt lined the raven’s face clearly but a look from the brunet warned him to say nothing about it. The shot would have killed Angeal. As it was, Squall stood a reasonable chance of living yet.

“Infected,” Rufus said at last, leaning away from the wounded brunet. “And the rib which stopped it penetrating further is broken. You’re lucky the infection hasn’t made it into the bone. Very lucky.”

“You can heal it though, can’t you?” Angeal asked, an edge of desperation to his voice now. He’d not known it was quite that serious and he’d be damned if he lost the brunet now to a cursed infection.

“I am one of the few who can,” Rufus replied cryptically. “Wait here please Angeal,” he instructed, before gesturing for Squall to move through to a smaller adjoining room.

It was an agonising wait for the raven who sat quietly, straining his hearing to catch even a whisper of what was happening in the other room but he heard nothing and wound up cataloguing the assortment of items lining shelves in neat rows around the room. There were sprigs of some herb or other hanging from the ceiling too, strong-smelling but not entirely unpleasant.

At last, minutes or hours later, Rufus emerged from the room with Squall in tow and Angeal had to admit that Squall looked better already. His features were still tight with pain but his colour was back and there were fresh, clean bandages wrapped around his torso and some kind of salve smeared across the cuts and bruises marking the brunet’s body. Looking between the two for some kind of information, he received only another one of those silent looks from Squall, this one he knew to be weighted with the promise of knowledge.

“You next please,” Rufus announced, gesturing for Angeal to join him in the small room instead. “I have to say, it is a pleasure to work on the both of you. You’re far more attractive than most of my visitors of late.”

Angeal blushed but Squall looked sharply at the man in disbelief. The brunet hadn’t looked as though he was keen on being there to start with but with that comment, he looked like he wanted to grab the raven’s arm and bolt.

Rufus chuckled softly. “Don’t give me that look. Most of the people who come here are either old ladies with boils or pregnant women wanting help with cravings or deliveries. It is rare indeed to have a pair of knights so close to the city in such dire need, which implies that you have travelled hard and travelled far, towards the city rather than away from it. It is a pleasant change indeed to be graced with the sight of such well looked after male physique.”

“You’re not helping your case,” Squall growled, his expression souring further when Rufus only laughed gently. That was when he noticed that Angeal too was chuckling softly and wearing a light blush of embarrassment, which implied that he was actually enjoying the compliments from the strange hedge-witch-wizard guy!

“I think you’ve teased him enough for now my friend,” Angeal murmured from beside the blond, smiling softly in amusement as Squall shot him a dark look on calling the stranger ‘friend’. The brunet swordsman had always said that he was too trusting, too quick to make friends of people but Rufus seemed harmless enough, so long as they didn’t make him angry. There was no telling what kind of a curse a hedge-witch would place on someone they actually disliked.

When Angeal too had been patched up and the trio were gathered once more in the main room, Squall’s expression had returned to its customary neutral appearance. Something was weighing on his mind, the raven could tell that much, and no doubt it had something to do with the blond whose company they shared right then.

Fishing out his coin purse, ready to leave as soon as possible, Squall held out what he assumed was a reasonable price for services rendered and was actually slightly surprised when Rufus waved dismissively. “Ah, put your coins away. The pleasure of healing such fine men is payment enough for today,” he announced.

“But you-” Squall began, only for Rufus to raise a hand to silence him.

“I healed you, nothing more,” he insisted, smiling wryly. “I hope you understand, men such as I must be nothing more than a healer.”

Nodding then, Squall held his tongue, slipping the assorted coins back into his purse and tying it to his belt once more as Angeal thanked the blond profusely for his generosity, shaking his hand and promising to visit again sometime when he was off-duty.

Once they had taken their leave of the hedge-witch’s hovel and the enigmatic young man within it, they begged a hot meal of the innkeeper as well as a double room in which to partake of it and it was there that Angeal’s curiosity finally got the better of him and he looked across the worn wooden table at his partner. “So, what was all of that about with Rufus?” he asked at last.

Squall sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and the scar that marred it. “Your new friend is more than a hedge-witch,” he began, pushing the last of his food around his plate before forking it into his mouth. “Rufus used magic to heal my side of infection and ward it against future contamination while it heals.”

“Hedge-witch magic is superstition Squall, you know that. It’s herbs and poultices and nonsense words made up to make you think that they’re invoking the spirits of nature to help them. It’s not real magic.” Angeal replied, though he knew that Squall was well aware of what superstitious nonsense hedge-witch magic was because of the two of them, the brunet was by far the more sceptical of them. So why had he changed his tune? What had Rufus done?

Giving him an unhappy look, Squall pushed his emptied plate away from himself, too caught up on their encounter with Rufus to have been able to enjoy a meal that would have been utterly delicious after days of cold, dried meat and nettle tea.  It spoke volumes for how troubled he was by their encounter that night.

“It was real magic Angeal, like that in the old stories. I don’t know how he did it. All the people who could use magic like that are supposed to be dead and gone, their secrets along with them, but Rufus used that magic, I swear it. When the quarrel was out, he used magic to cleanse the infection. No herb or salve could clear up an infection so quickly.

And the ‘generosity’ of declining payment was no such thing. It was a bribe to keep our mouths shut about him. Who knows what could happen to him if word reached the wrong ears regarding what he’s capable of. If he wasn’t locked up until he spilled his secrets, they’d be tortured out of him.”

He sounded as though he was still trying to convince himself that what had been done to him was real. There was no other explanation though. Rufus would not have stitched up the wound before bandaging him back up if there was still infection there. With normal healing he would have been laid up in bed for days while the wound was drained and the infection cleaned every day with salted water before they even thought of stitching him back up.

Angeal was quiet for a long time, just looking thoughtfully at his troubled brunet friend before he rose from the table and moved around to Squall’s side of it, reaching down to gather the smaller swordsman into his arms. Normally the brunet would protest against it, however half-heartedly, but that night he just rested his head against Angeal’s shoulder with a soft sigh.

“There could be more people like him out there,” Angeal murmured, not about to question Squall’s experience, trusting the man to know what he was talking about. “Maybe the old ways are not lost to us completely.” He sounded hopeful, even just a little bit excited. The tales of old were always full of brave wizards defending the royal family, of healers in every town using magic to cure any ills. Angeal imagined world filled with magic, where it was accepted as a part of life instead of feared as it had been before all wizards and witches disappeared from the world.

Squall, as usual, worried about it. For every good witch there was an evil one, capable of casting the world into a terrible darkness. For every act of wonderful healing, of lives saved thanks to that magic, there were acts unparalleled evil, raising the dead, laying waste to entire villages, even the corruption of the very land itself. If magic was indeed returning to their world, there was as much cause to fear as there was to rejoice.

Laying on the bed beside Squall, Angeal brushed a stray lock of hair from the younger’s face and the touch brought his partner’s focus back to him. He smiled faintly as the brunet shifted beneath the thin sheets to rest his head on Angeal’s firm chest, listening to the strong beat of his heart beneath his ear.

“We are both going to live through our latest adventure. Let that be enough for now. Tomorrow we make the Kingsroad,” Angeal murmured, gently wrapping his arms around the brunet, mindful of his damaged rib.

They slept like that, and when dawn did break at last over River’s Edge, the pair of them were ready to return to the last leg of their journey not long after.

As predicted, even though the sun was barely risen, the town was alive with people preparing for the day. Market stalls were being cleaned and prepared and horses were being hitched to wagons laden with goods in transit to the city beyond the river. Tradesmen and women were readying for the day, firing up furnaces, preparing dough for baking or arranging their wares for display and all of it made Angeal homesick for the city they too were destined for where such activity was on a grander scale.

Squall nudged him gently and together they went looking for the ferryman who was, as expected, readying the wide ferry for the first of the day’s passage across the water.

After parting with a little more of their coin, they were ushered aboard the oft-used ferry worn smooth by countless feet, wheels and hooves along with two laden wagons, their beasts and their drivers. Minutes later, the ferryman had them pushed off into the river and signalled to the team across the water whose beasts of burden began working the pulley that moved them across the wide and deep waters.

Not for the first time, Squall wished that their horses hadn’t been lost on their journey because they still had a fair walk ahead of them but then, almost as if sensing his need, not long after they had disembarked and begun the last trek of their trip, an empty cart being pulled back towards the city kept pace alongside them for a moment and the young man and woman pair driving the two-horse cart called down to them.

“Heading to the city, boys?” the woman called out amicably.

“We are,” Angeal replied, trying not to let his hopes get too high. A ride for the last leg of the journey would be such a gift right then. “We used all but the last of our coin to pay passage across the river though.”

“Never you mind that. Climb aboard, good sirs. Let the wagon bear your burdens a while, there’s space aplenty for a couple of Lysentia’s knights, no matter that you’re barely recognisable as such.”

“Thank you kindly!” Angeal replied happily and even Squall managed a small smile at that.

Helping his brunet partner into the back of the moving cart, Angeal swung up behind him with the ease and strength that bespoke an immeasurable amount of training, just as his larger build suggested the same. He shook hands with the pair driving the wagon who explained that there just weren’t enough good people on the roads those days willing to lend a hand and that in light of that, they helped where they could, even if it was just a wagon to rest a couple of pairs of weary legs.

While Angeal amicably began to regale the pair with some choice tales of their travels, including their latest encounter with a group of trigger-happy bandits with a crossbow, Squall leaned back against the low wall of the cart and settled in to doze even as the sun rose higher in the sky, feeling the occasional bump of the wheels across the well-travelled road beneath them.

At midday, Angeal woke his brunet companion to hand him a chunk of delightfully soft and fresh bread that the kindly pair had shared with them and they washed it down with a berry cordial that the husband and wife pair had made after revealing themselves to be winemakers on a vineyard just beyond the city’s immense walls. Angeal was clearly loving the conversation and asked a great many questions about wine making and the grapes and the people hired to help during their harvest and it left Squall smiling faintly, beginning to feel closer to home at last and it wasn’t long after that that Lysentia’s great grey walls rose into sight.

Hearts buoyed by the sight, they thanked the winemakers and announced that they’d like to make the last of their journey on foot, letting the wagon go on ahead with yet more thanks and calls of fortune and good weather to favour them.

And there they were, almost as they had started their journey, so it was about to end. After nearly a year away, months of travel in either direction, they were finally approaching the city and they were doing it victorious.

In a satchel at the smaller swordsman’s side, the precious little relic was safely stored away, wrapped in bundles of cloth to protect it from the hardships of the road and Squall touched it gingerly as if to reassure himself of its presence. All of that for an old signet ring, but one that would cement the line of succession for generations to come.

“…geal! Squall! You’re back!”

Focusing ahead of them, Angeal raised his hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight just as Squall did and a wide smile broke out across his lips as he laid eyes on a young blond, younger than himself and Squall, who had clearly done a whole lot of growing up in their absence.

The wildly spiky haired blond practically threw himself at the pair approaching the city gates, crashing into Angeal who partially shielded the brunet before Cloud could hurt him.

Perhaps the blond hadn’t done quite that much growing up.

“I’m so glad you’re back! I can’t believe it!” Cloud gushed, pulling back to drink in the sight of the two people he had almost begun to worry about never seeing again. When he saw them though, the bandages, the holes in their clothes, their dirty hair and faces, the tired way they were holding themselves, his wide smile faded a bit.

“You were gone for so long… It shows too,” he observed with a soft, unhappy sigh. “Come, I’ll have the servants draw you both hot baths and tend your hurts when we get to the castle. And you can tell me everything then. I want to hear every detail, don’t leave a single thing out,” he announced, ushering them onwards. A knight now himself, he knew that they would to first make their reports before they were even allowed within sight of a bath or fresh clothes but he would speed the process as best he could.

“I missed you guys,” he added quietly as they passed beneath the great doors and the raised portcullis beyond it, traffic coming and going around them as they entered the city proper and dirt roads became cobblestone as they followed the main road through the city towards the castle at its heart.

As the mid-afternoon sun finally began its descent in the sky and the trio approached the castle that was the end of their journey, Angeal wrapped his arms around the shoulders of both his young lovers and stepped through the heavy oak doors.

“We missed you too Cloud,” Angeal admitted at last, where only his lovers and the cold stone of the corridor could hear. “We missed you too.”

 


End file.
